


The Man On The Bridge

by sansastvrk



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: BAMF Sharon Carter (Marvel), Captain America Trilogy Fix-it, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fix-It, Slow Burn, i think
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:00:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 17,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23708782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sansastvrk/pseuds/sansastvrk
Summary: Steve has to battle a ghost from his past.Sharon has to end a legacy.(A Sharon/Steve centric fic, which explores the idea of what if Sharon was a lead in TWS)
Relationships: Sharon Carter/Steve Rogers
Comments: 70
Kudos: 78





	1. The Vending Machine

**Author's Note:**

> *in Britney Spears' voice*  
> OOPS I did it agaiiiiin.
> 
> this is an idea that I've been wanting to explore for a really long time. I hope you all like it.

Steve's face flushed red when Kate's door gave him the gentle reminder that she had turned down his offer just days ago. He hadn’t seen her in a while, and maybe that was for the best. Her politeness was appreciated nonetheless, but a part of him had really wished she’d say yes.

The sudden awareness that it was the sound of _his_ record playing in his apartment made him abruptly come to a halt. Steve's first instinct was to get his shield somehow but he had left it home. Breaking the door's handle would only invite unnecessary attention from the neighbours and definitely alert the intruder, so he climbed the building from the west side to enter his apartment from the window and silently prayed that no one would catch him in the act. He jumped through his window and landed lightly on his feet. He was swift in grabbing the shield from where it was leaning against the wall and tiptoed into his living room.

He emerged in the living room but when he saw the “intruders” all sense of thought left his mind. Was his mind playing tricks on him? Was it a side effect of being frozen for seventy years? The last thing he ever expected to see was Kate _tending_ to a wounded Nick Fury, who was reclined on Steve’s very own couch, but that is what he saw all the same. His grip on the shield tightened and his jaws clenched so tight he thought he'd rupture something ... but nothing happened. He put two and two together quite fast and everything that had happened in the past several months began to make so much more sense.

The way they bumped into each other ever so often. The careful glances she gave him. The slightly flirtatious banter, but never inviting him in. Never accepting his invites. The home made food when he’d come back from a tough mission. The pies when he was awfully quiet at night. The fucking cheer-your-mood-up-hope-you-don't-kill-yourself pies. 

He recalled Fury trying to persuade him into having back-up and a bodyguard when he initially took up his offer to join SHEILD, since he refused to live in the secure accommodations offered by the organisation for it’s employees. When he sternly refused that offer, despite Fury’s repeated requests...well- let's just say Fury was someone who always got what he wanted at the end of the day.

Steve was shocked initially, but knowing Fury, he could not really say he was surprised. This was the director of SHIELD afterall. He was disappointed because his decision meant nothing. But Fury wasn’t made Director of SHIELD because he “respected choices”.

Kneeling beside him, Kate mouthed a ssssh and placed a finger on her lips. Steve glared angrily, unable to understand why she'd want him to be quiet. He’d later learn it was to not acknowledge her presence.

"Well, Captain...this is awkward," Nick's voice broke the silence.

"I don't remember giving you a key," Steve snapped and cut all small talk short so he could get to the point.

Nick struggled to sit up straight, ignoring the warning from Kate. She grabbed a new piece of cloth and began applying pressure to his bleeding wound. "You really think I'd need one?"  
Even in his condition, the man had a sense of humour.

"My wife kicked me out," Fury resumed cooly, as if he weren't reclined with serious injuries on his couch.

"I didn't know you had a wife." Steve replied and glanced between Fury and Kate.

"There's a lot of things you don't know about me." Fury said.

"I know Nick, that's the problem," he replied, eyeing Kate. He moved to turn on the lamp and with the light on he realised Fury was bleeding profusely, the couch beneath him stained blood red. The cloth in Kate's hand was soaked in blood now and she replaced it with another to keep the pressure steady. Steve's anger converged into a mix of spite and concern as he stepped closer to Fury who motioned him to stop and turned the lamp off from his side. By his side, Kate became more and more agitated. Her hands began to tremble where they were once so steady and stable, unable to stop the bleeding.

Fury seemed to be handling bleeding to death extremely well as he carefully typed something into his phone and showed it to Steve.

**EARS EVERYWHERE.**

Steve huffed as his concern once again subsided to pure spite and rage. He scanned around his living room and realised that this entire time his apartment had been bugged.

"I'm sorry to have to do this, but I had nowhere else to crash," he stated carefully, clearly so that his voice would make it to the bugs. He showed Steve his phone again.

**SHIELD COMPROMISED.**

Steve's grip on his shield loosened but not enough to drop it. He couldn't believe the organisation he put his heart and soul into was compromised. It still didn’t explain why Nick was hurt. And it definitely didn’t excuse the fact that Kate was assigned to spy on him. He looked at Kate and then back at Fury.

"Who else knows about your wife?" He asked carefully.

"Just...my friends," and with that he rose, ignoring the warnings of Kate. His mobile read:

**US.**

"Is that what we are?" Steve asked.

"That's up to you," Nick stated.

  
And just as Steve thought the day couldn't get any worse, three clean shots pierced through his walls and made their way straight into Nick, who groaned and fell to the floor. Kate ducked behind a cupboard next to the sofa. When the shooting stopped she rushed to aid Nick and the two of them dragged his body away from the windows of the flat.

Nick grabbed Steve by the wrist and handed him the hard drive. The very same hard drive that Natasha had backed up all of Lemurian Star's data into. How did all of that tie into this? He did not know. All he knew was that the last thing Nick said with his dying breath was, "Don't. Trust. Anyone." And he sure as hell was going to hold on to it.

Kate knelt beside his body and felt for a pulse. She withdrew a walkie from one of her pockets and spoke:

"Foxtrot is down. He's unresponsive. I need an EMT."

\- "Do we have a 20 on the shooter?"

"Tell them I'm in pursuit," he said before taking off.

\--------

They stood in front of his body. Silent. Mindful. This was farewell. Steve numbly leaned against the wall. Kate stood closest to Nick, Natasha just a few steps behind her. Hill gently placed a hand on Kate’s shoulder.

“We have to take the body,” she said, her voice low, but Kate stood unflinching, not registering a word. “I’ll give you some time,” Hill said at last and left.

Natasha on the other hand… Natasha was angry. She left the room and shut the door loudly behind her. Kate flinched with the loud bang and then let her shoulders drop, her quiet tears were now gentle sobs. Steve could feel his throat tightening and the only thing that made sense at the moment was to chase Natasha. So he left, leaving Kate alone with Nick’s body while Natasha stopped after hearing him call out her name.

She turned around to face him, anger building in her eyes.

“Why was Nick in your apartment?” she asked, and Steve began to panic. He had not prepared a strategy on how he would proceed with this situation. Don’t trust anyone, that is what Nick had said after all.

“I don’t know.” he prayed it would be believable.

“You’re a terrible liar,” she said before leaving.

He heard gentle steps approach from behind him, and was greeted with a tired and red eyed Kate… no, Agent 13.

“Where’s the drive?” she asked.

“What’s it to you?” he countered.

“Captain, we need to work together. Where is the drive?” she asked again.

“I. Don’t. Know.”

Rumlow was approaching them, but Kate elected to ignore him, her sole focus on Steve and the drive. “They’re asking for both of you back at SHIELD,” he said.

“Okay,” Kate said without looking at him, her eyes still on Steve and her mind still on their interrupted conversation.

\- “They’re asking for you now,” Rumlow insisted.

“Okay,” this time Steve said with such sternness that Rumlow slowly backtracked and joined Sitwell and the other agents down the hall.

“You need me,” Kate said once Rumlow was out of earshot.

“Like I needed you to spy on me?” Steve asked. “Hmm? Save me from myself? Is that the excuse you're going to use?”

She was taken aback, that had hurt her feelings. She placed her hands on her hips and scanned the hall. It was weird to say the least, seeing her in a leather jacket and a SHIELD badge, when all he had ever seen her in were hospital scrubs.

“I'm not going to apologise or give you an excuse for doing my job. Now I’m going to ask you again, where’s the drive?”

“I've already told you, I don’t know,” Steve said. Her hands curled into fists and she took a deep breath to compose herself and it was as if she had turned a switch off. The agent inside the room and the one in front of him now seemed like two different people. She left him alone in the hall, making her way to Rumlow and Sitwell. Little did he know, the last thing she saw before leaving with Rumlow was him staring at the vending machine in the hospital’s hall.


	2. The Ghost Story

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The start of an alliance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for taking so much time. The current lock-down has left me very unmotivated.

Sharon took a deep breath. It’s all she could do to compose herself in Secretary Pierce’s office. She was treading on dangerous waters, and the only way out was by lying; her life depended on it. 

Alexander Pierce sat across the table, ready to hear her side of the story. “I can understand you’re tired, Thirteen. This hasn’t been easy on anyone. And I can also understand yesterday was nerve wracking. You lost a mentor, a great asset for someone in your position, definitely. But if we want to get to the bottom of Nick’s assassination, I need to know what happened last night.” He said with his back bent forward and elbows resting on his knees. 

In the grey, bright office, Sharon felt completely and utterly lost. The only thing that encircled in her mind over and over again was Nick’s warning. She had to be careful. 

_Don’t trust anyone._

“Anyone” included every single one of them. The agents, the spies, the mercenaries, even the janitors and _most definitely_ Pierce. She knew what she had to do. She understood the consequences, but lying was the only thing that made sense right now. 

“I heard a crash in Captain Rogers’ apartment and went to investigate, by the time I got there, Fury was down and I called for the EMT,” she explained. 

That was not what had happened; Nick had come to her first. Bleeding and panting, he mumbled nonsense, and kept saying he had to see Rogers.

_“Fine. Fine! I’ll take you to him but what the hell happened,” she had said._

_“There’s no time, Carter, just get me to him and I’ll explain,” he said, struggling for every breath._

And just like that, she had helped him into Rogers’ apartment with the extra key she had been given in case of an attack. Rogers was smart, she had to give him that. It didn’t take long for him to figure she was SHIELD. And then Nick was assassinated. While Rogers chased after the sniper, she had to stay behind with Fury’s dying body. 

_That_ is what had happened. 

Pierce wasn’t an idiot. He knew something was missing, she could read the dissatisfaction on his face. He stayed still for a moment and nodded at last. He offered her his condolences and showed her the way out. “Well, if you recall anything else, you let me know.”

“Yes, of course, sir,” she nodded. She turned to leave and her breath hitched when she saw Steve Rogers approaching them. One wrong word from him to Pierce and all the bullshit she had just spat in there would blow up in her face. Well, it was about to blow regardless of what Rogers would or would not say.

“Captain Rogers,” she greeted as the two walked past each other. 

_“Neighbour.”_

_That son of a bitch!_ Sharon glared at him and walked away, stepping into the elevator. She needed to get her hands on that drive. She made a final stop at her office but before she could open the door, a hand came at her shoulder and pulled her away roughly. 

Neal Tapper stood in front of her, hands balled into a fist.

“Neal, what the hell?” she yelled. His fist came at her and she dodged it, stepping back. _They sent him after me,_ she realised. She dodged another surprisingly ill-timed punch and countered it with a jab at his collar bone. He staggered back. _He was pulling his punches_. When he was steady again, he looked around to make sure no one was watching and then motioned her to come at her and she swiftly kneed him, causing him to fall back. 

She knelt over him and pressed into his ear, “Thanks,” she whispered. 

“It’s okay, just… hurry up and figure this shit out. They’re sending more,” he whispered back. She nodded and got on her feet.

"Wait!" he said, "make it believable."

And so, she punched him in the face before rushing out. 

\-------

The drive to the hospital was a blur. Sharon would have to ditch the car eventually, but she wanted to utilise it for as long as it was feasible. She found the flash drive just as Rogers had left it, behind two packs of gum. Sharon always considered Steve to be a smart man. She had to be very careful with her cover... When she had one. He was known to be observant and clever, but leaving the USB like this was dumb to say the least. 

She scanned around the halls to find a T.V. and news was out. For an organisation filled to the brim with secrecy, Steve Rogers’ escape from the Triskelion got out pretty fast. They branded him a fugitive and issued a warrant for his arrest. Anyone with information on his whereabouts would be paid handsomely, or so the news broadcaster announced. 

Nick’s final words were making more and more sense. 

\-------

Sharon waited patiently, until Rogers finally appeared, wearing clearly stolen clothes; a worn out grey hoodie and a pair of _very_ over-sized sneakers. She hid herself behind a corner until he stood dumbfounded in front of the vending machine. This was her cue; _who said she couldn’t have a little fun with it?_

She emerged from behind, blew out a pink bubble and gathered the remains from her lips when it popped. She raised an eyebrow in question, but he had no time for her nonsense. With one swift motion, he pushed her into an empty room and shoved her against the wall, momentarily knocking the air out of her.

"Where's the drive?" He asked, his grip tight and painful around her shoulders. 

"Safe," she said. Did she even weigh like something to him? He’d practically slid her across the room, as if she were a ball of yarn.

"Do better. Did you know about the tracker?” he asked, enraged. 

“What tracker?” Now he was getting on her nerves. 

“The one they planted on my suit!” he screeched in a whisper. 

“No, I didn’t know about that.”

“Stop lying.”

“I’m not lying,” she said as she glared at him, she did not know about the tracker, but with their current state of affairs, she wasn’t surprised one bit. “Why did Nick give you the drive?” she asked instead. 

“What’s on it?” he countered.

"I don't know," she replied.

“Did you know about the Lemurian Star? Did you know Fury hired the pirates?” he asked. 

“Well, it makes sense. I heard the ship was dirty, Fury needed a way in...so do you,” she said with the ghost of a smirk curved on her lips.

 _“_ I’m not gonna ask you again," he warned, adding force to his grip. 

_Don’t trust anyone,_ but this was Steve Rogers standing in front of her. The same Steve Rogers that Aunt Peggy talked about her entire life. The same Steve Rogers she had learned so much about in the past few years. She _had_ to trust him. She had to stop deflecting. 

“I know who killed Fury,” she said after a long pause, and that’s all she had to say, before he let go of her. 

“Most of the intelligence community doesn’t believe he exists, but the ones who do, call him the Winter Soldier. He’s been credited with over two dozen assassinations in the last _fifty years._ ”

“So he’s a ghost story,” he said, stepping back to give her some room. 

Sharon sighed and rested her head against the wall, she needed to earn his trust if they were going to figure this out. And what better way to do that than to tell an old forgotten encounter with the Winter Soldier. 

“Five years ago, Nat and I were escorting a nuclear engineer out of Iran, she was on the wheel and someone shot out the tires, we lost control and went straight over the cliff. We pulled him out, but the Winter Soldier was there. We tried to save the engineer, but he shot him through me and disappeared like he was never there,” she explained. She lifted a bit of her shirt to show him the jagged scar she had acquired on the little trip. 

"Soviet slugs, no rifling, bye bye bikinis,” she smirked to cover the most terrifying mission of her life. 

“Nat...have you heard from her?” he asked, ignoring her jest entirely. 

“No, she’s probably halfway across the country by now.” She straightened herself and stood eye to eye with Steve. “Rogers, going after him is a dead end. I know, because SHIELD has tried, multiple times.” She put emphasis on _multiple times_. “It’s like you said,” she held up the flash-drive for him, “He’s a ghost story.” Steve nodded and took the drive from her. 

“If we are going in this together, I _need_ to know the person watching my back,” he said. 

“Okay,” she huffed and rolled her shoulders. She stuck her hand out to shake his, “Captain Rogers, I am Agent Sharon Carter of SHIELD’s Special Service.” 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, would love to hear from you all in the comments.


	3. The Twenty Third Floor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I know they’re coming for our asses. I had to jump off of an elevator!” 
> 
> “You what!?” she yelled in a whisper, but then shook her head and raised her hand to stop him from explaining. They could all share their how-I-escaped-the-Triskelion stories later. What mattered right now was the drive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leather jacket + Grey Hoodie duo adventures continue.

_“Captain Rogers, I am Agent Sharon Carter of SHIELD’s Special Service.”_

Carter. The name rang in his ears like a church bell. He stood in the sterile hospital room dumbfounded. Was it just him or were the walls closing in on him? 

"What..."

It wasn’t too long ago, when he thought he knew the woman in front of him as Kate, with her blonde curls bouncing around her shoulders and her toothy smile and her cookies and pies. Until this moment, he thought he was starting to get to know Agent 13… all work no nonsense, calculating and observant, and a _fucking spy_ sent by SHIELD. But Sharon Carter? He didn’t know what to make of Sharon Carter.

“I know you have questions, but believe me when I say that SHIELD is coming for our collective asses and we don’t have the time to discuss my family tree,” she said. 

He knit his eyebrows; she was explaining the obvious to him like he was a toddling infant. “I _know_ they’re coming for our asses. I had to jump off of an elevator!”

“You what!?” she yelled in a whisper, but then shook her head and raised her hand to stop him from explaining. They could all share their how-I-escaped-the-Triskelion stories later. What mattered right now was the drive. But Steve Rogers couldn't move past the revelation that had been dropped on him. “Is this why you were assigned to me?” he stepped back. 

“I was assigned to you because I am a capable agent,” she pointed her index at him. He scoffed at her remark. That had certainly caught her off guard. She opened her mouth to fire back at him but then stopped. 

Instead, she took a deep breath and observed the man in front of him, now that their back and forth fire round was over. He looked like he had been thrown into a washing machine. He was tired, disoriented and in someone else’s clothes. His hands were awkwardly placed by his sides, like he didn’t know what to do with them. “Rogers, I will answer everything,” she began at last, “but right now we have more pressing matters to tend to.”

He gave the ceiling a long and hard stare, as if contemplating his options. He didn't entirely trust her, but he knew he couldn't contact anyone else except her. Natasha was nowhere near to be found, Maria was last seen with Fury’s body at the hospital and that’s about the only people he could count on. 

“Okay,” he nodded slowly. 

\-----

Cameron found himself stretching his legs beneath the glass table. He had been sitting at his desk for hours now, so was everyone else around him, preparing for the launch of the helicarriers. He had only blinked once or twice when the large screen in front of them, displaying the countdown to the launch transitioned into pictures of Captain America and Agent 13 with the words **fugitive** written under them. Cameron audibly gulped and moved his hands away from his keyboard. Agent Jasper Sitwell strutted in. 

“Eyes here,” he ordered. “Whatever your OP is, bury it. This is level one. Contact DOP. All traffic lights in the district go red. Shut all runways at BWI, IAD and Reagan. All security cameras in the city go through this monitor, right here,” he pointed at the largest screen in the room. Cameron could feel his heart jump in his chest. His eyes searched for Neal, but couldn’t find him anywhere. 

“Scan all open sources. Phones, computers, PDAs, whatever. If someone tweets about this guy, I want to know about it.” Sitwell directed. 

_This guy?_ Cameron thought. “This guy” was only the most esteemed agent of SHIELD. Cameron had a really bad feeling about this. Before he could comprehend his words, they were out of his mouth. 

“With all due respect sir, if SHIELD is conducting a _manhunt_ for Captain America and… Agent 13, we deserve to know why,” he blurted. He was pretty sure his voice quivered towards the end of his sentence. 

“Because they lied to us,” a stern voice at the door spoke. All eyes pointed towards the entrance of the office, for Secretary Alexander Pierce himself had made his way to the twenty third floor. All seated agents rose and Cameron thought his heart had finally made it out of his body. He had dreamt of the day the higher ups at SHIELD would notice him, but this was not how he had imagined it to go. 

“Captain Rogers and Agent 13 have information regarding the death of Director Fury, but they lied to us about the night of his assassination. As difficult as this is to accept, they are fugitives from SHIELD.” 

Agent Sitwell and Secretary Pierce left the office the way they had come in and the agents around Cameron began intercepting CCTV footage. Cameron felt a hand grab his shoulder and thought his body had left his soul, but when his chair turned, it was Neal, sporting a fresh, bruised eye. 

“Oh Jesus, you scared me,” he said. “What happened to your eye?” 

“Not important,” Neal shook his head. “What are you doing?” he asked instead. 

“How did Agent 13 end up with _Captain Rogers?_ Wasn’t she assigned to him? Did she blow her cover?”

“This is not the right place, just stay sharp,” Neal warned and got back to his own desk. Neal felt for his gun in it’s holster, he didn’t have the slightest clue on what was going on, but he knew he had to be prepared for anything and everything. 

\-----

Steve and Sharon arrived at the mall and it was far too crowded for their liking, packed with families, tourists and teens, some hustling around, others taking their time. 

“Too many civilians,” Steve noted. 

“Relax, just follow my lead and we’ll be out here before anyone notices. And the first rule of being on the run is don’t run, _walk.”_

That stopped his accelerated pace, but Sharon still had to walk fast to keep up with him. She led Steve into an Apple store, but didn’t stop until she found a laptop away from all the windows and most civilians. 

“Just keep an eye out,” she said before taking a final look around the store. “The drive has a Level Six Homing Program, so as soon as we boot up SHIELD will know exactly where we are.”

“How much time do we have?” Steve asked. 

“About nine minutes from…” she plugged the USB into the port, “now.”

\----

“What do I do?” Cameron asked as he showed his screen to Neal. A SHIELD drive with a Level Six Homing Program had just been activated, and he knew it had something to do with Captain Rogers and Agent 13. 

“Alert them, we can’t let them suspect us,” he said. 

\- “But they’ll go after them!” 

“We can’t risk it. They’ll have to handle this one without our help.”

Cameron dully noded. He typed in a command and forwarded the alert to everyone as it appeared on the large screen. Within minutes, Rumlow and a good chunk of STRIKE Team Alpha were dispatched to the scene.

\----

“Fury was right about that ship, somebody's trying to hide something. This drive is protected by some sort of AI, it keeps rewriting itself to counter my commands,” Sharon said in a low voice, furiously typing away at the keyboard. 

Steve stood in a broad, spread out stance, making sure Sharon and the contents of the screen were hidden from anyone who’d pass by. “Can you override it?”

“No, but I'm gonna try running a tracer. This is a program that SHIELD developed to track hostile malware, so if we can't read the file, maybe we can find out where it came from,” she explained with her eyes still trained on the screen. 

“Can I help you guys with anything?”

Steve flipped around to an Apple employee whose shirt read _How Can I Help You._ He froze, unable to concoct a reply. Sharon thought he would be able to handle it but then realised he was thinking like a soldier, not a spy. She put on her best smile and hugged Steve from behind, resting her chin on his shoulder. 

“Oh, no. My fiancé was just helping me with some honeymoon destinations,” she said, her tone jolly and gleeful. Steve was slightly terrified of how quickly she had switched into a completely different persona on the spot, but he was more terrified of how he had to support her statement. 

“Riiight, we are getting married,” he announced, trying to mimic the smile he had seen a glance of, but knowing damn well he failed miserably. 

“Oh, Congratulations! Where are you guys thinking about going?” the employee asked, so interested in their made-up story. Steve made a quick move to pretend to look at the screen, the signal being traced to somewhere in New Jersey. 

“New Jersey,” Steve spoke confidently, then once he had said it, wished he could facepalm himself. The Apple employee blinked several times and let out a low _oh,_ but then his eyes went wide and he pointed at Steve’s face, and Steve thought that he had been made for sure. The first time he had been made was at a grocery store and it ended with him signing autographs for a large crowd he didn't have the heart to refuse to, and taking pictures with several others. Since then, he thought he had gotten better at disguises, but as of today he wasn't so sure.

“I have the exact same glasses!” the man said. 

_Oh, thank God._

Sharon, unaware of the mini-heart attack Steve had just dodged, said, “Wow, you two are practically twins,” in a dead voice. 

“I wish,” the man gushed over Steve’s body, “specimen...Well!” he snapped out of his trance, “If you need me, I’ve been Aaron,” he said as he showed them his employee card and walked away. 

“Wow, you need me to get you his number or anything?” Sharon asked, her voice still dry and monotonous. 

“Knock it off, you said nine minutes,” he said. 

“There, got it.” she pointed at the screen, but Steve’s doleful countenance surprised her.

“What...Do you know the place?” she asked carefully, not wanting to upset him any further than he already seemed. 

“I used to.”

\------ 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I personally think my writing has a long way to go, but I have to start somewhere, I guess. I would love to see your suggestions. Thanks for reading.


	4. The Drive to Camp Lehigh

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A long drive and a crucial conversation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was initially a very very very long chapter, but out of fear of people not reading because of it's length, I divided it into 2... Expect the next chapter very soon xx

“Let’s go.” 

Steve pulled the flash drive from the computer and secured it in his pocket. They rushed out the store the same way they had come in. Steve and Sharon were still on the second floor when they noticed SHIELD agents swarming the mall. 

“Strike tac-team...two behind, two across, two coming straight at us. If they make us, I’ll engage, you hit the south escalator to the metro,” Steve said. He was smart and strategic, sure, but Sharon wanted to roll her eyes. Not everything had to end up in a fight. Sometimes, a little theatrical performance went a long, long way. So, Sharon decided to take over the reins.

“Shut up and put your arm around me, laugh at something I said,” she instructed.

“What?” he asked, visibly confused. Sharon reached for his arm and rested it around her neck, with her other hand, she hugged his back. 

“Do it!”

Steve ducked his head down and let out a low, forced laugh. The STRIKE agents walked past them, unsuspecting their presence. Steve spun his head around, visibly surprised by how the two had gone unnoticed. He was beginning to understand Sharon’s versatility in the field. 

They were descending the final escalator when Sharon spotted Rumlow ascending from the opposite side. She spun around. “Rumlow. Behind me.”

“Get ready to engage,” he ordered. 

Sharon nodded, producing a gun from her jacket. Rumlow was closing in. Steve’s shield was hidden beneath a dumpster just outside the mall, and that left him completely unarmed. 

Sharon pulled out a knife from her boot and brought it up to him. Steve wondered how many more weapons she had concealed underneath her clothes, but quickly pushed the thought away. He grabbed the blade from her; It was better than nothing. It took Rumlow a mere second to recognise them, and once he did, he yelled a command into his collar and jumped over his side of the escalator and landed in-between Steve and Sharon. He produced a baton cackling with electricity and went for Steve’s side, but Sharon kicked his knee before he could do anything about it. 

Screaming and yelling erupted on the floor when a gunshot went off. An agent from the second floor’s balcony had just missed Sharon’s leg. Steve on the other hand, made a quick grab for Rumlow’s baton and jammed it between his zipped jacket and t-shirt. The sound of racing footsteps grew louder and Steve signalled Sharon to run for the exit. He jumped over a kneeling, convulsing Rumlow and followed Sharon out of the mall. 

They made a quick stop at the dumpsters and sprinted across the parking lot that stretched for blocks. Steve hotwired the least obvious, low profile vehicle he could find. A blue, worn out pick-up truck.

* * *

An hour had passed since they had begun their journey to New Jersey and Sharon was desperate to break the silence. She tossed her water bottle to the back seat, gave a long, unceremonious yawn and placed her foot on top of the dash.

“Where did Captain America learn how to steal a car?” she asked. 

“Nazi Germany...and we are _borrowing_. Get your foot off the dash,” he said. Sharon slowly lifted her foot. 

“Well,” she started again, “we still have a long way to go, and I know there’s so much that you’ve been wanting to ask so...shoot away,” she said. Steve nodded and thought long and hard. 

“How are you related to her?” he asked at last. 

“She’s my great-aunt.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Aunt Peggy was my idol growing up. Her stories about the war, espionage, the danger. Her stories about _you,_ ” she glanced at Steve. “She was a bigger influence than my parents. My mother tried to talk me out of enlisting, but not her, no. She bought me my first knife holster.”

“Very practical,” he said, smiling now. It was good to see him like that. _Wait, what?_ Sharon slightly shook her head at the random thought. 

“And stylish,” she added, pushing her stray thoughts away. 

The drive resumed to it’s silence once again. Steve was terrible at keeping a conversation going for long and Sharon felt like that the fate of this entire journey rested on her shoulders. 

_And besides_ , she thought, _that definitely couldn’t have been all he wanted to ask._ He was holding back. “Go on,” she encouraged. 

“When you were spying on me from across the hall-” he began.

“Doing my job,” she corrected. 

“Did Peggy know?”

Sharon shook her head. She had thought about it so many times on the job. How happy Peggy would feel knowing that Sharon knew THE Steve Rogers. But, eventually, she had decided not to tell her about it. “She kept so many secrets. I didn't want her to have one from you.” 

Steve didn’t know how to process that. 

It wasn’t too long ago, when he thought he knew the woman next to him as Kate, her tough nursing job that kept her away from home for hours, her expert hand in baking, her blonde curls; a perfect contrast to her brown eyes. He had also seen a glimpse of Thirteen. A sharp minded, pliant and headstrong agent. 

But Sharon Carter? He couldn’t find the right words when it came to Sharon Carter. Before he could get further lost in his own mind, her question snapped him out of it.

“What?” he asked.

“I said is there anything else you want to ask?”

“Uh, let’s see...I understand why they are after me, but why are they after you?”

Sharon sighed and placed her head in her hands. It had been a stupid mistake. “My ‘testimony’ didn’t match with what the bugs recorded back at your place,” she said. 

Steve raised an eyebrow. “That’s unlike you.”

“I wasn’t focused,” she explained. Steve didn’t probe any further. He knew how shaken she had been after Fury’s death. It seemed to him that the two went way back, maybe even before her SHIELD days. “My turn,” she declared, shifting her body entirely, so she was facing him. 

“Was Aaron your first crush since 1945?”

“What!?” he laughed. 

“This isn’t the 40s anymore you know, we’ve progressed a lot since then, a man can like a man if-”

“What are you going on about!?” he squeaked. 

“Alright, alright jeez. I’m just fucking with you,” she explained. Steve made a disgusted face at her language.

“Nobody special though?” she asked. 

Steve’s sigh almost sounded painful. Sharon realised too late that she had stepped into a conversation that could take a wrong turn very fast.

“It’s kind of hard to find someone with a shared life experience.”

“That’s not so bad. You can always just make something up,” she suggested.

“What, like you?”

If she was hurt by that remark, she didn’t show it. His frustration about her “job” was valid at the end of the day, they both knew that. Sharon believed that he would need some time to put it past him. 

“In this job,” she said, “the truth is a matter of circumstances. It's not all things to all people all the time. And neither am I...or was.” 

Steve’s eyes averted away from the road and took a good look at Sharon, she was no longer sitting with her back to the door, instead she was paying attention to the trees and fields that blurred past them. 

“That’s a tough way to live,” he said, his eyes still on her. 

“It’s a good way not to die though,” she turned, briefly glancing at his blues before looking back at the road. 

“You know, it’s kind of hard to trust someone when you know so much, yet _so little_ about them, when you don’t know who that person really is,” he said, slowly, taking his time with each word, making sure it didn’t sound spiteful or petty. 

“Yeah? Well, who do you want me to be?” she sincerely asked. 

“How about a friend?” 

That got a small chuckle out of her. He thought about their history for a while. From her spying on him to them being on the run together. It was a bizarre introduction, to put it mildly. But after dealing with gods, aliens and strange, strange men, it was just on the edge of ordinary for him. 

“Well, there’s a chance you might be in the wrong business, Rogers.” 

He had to do a double take to realise the subtle curve of her lips. It was far off from “Kate’s” gleaming smile, or Agent Thirteen’s smirk. It was something that belonged to Sharon Carter and Sharon Carter alone. 

* * *

Steve pulled up outside the gates of an abandoned military base. “This is it,” he said. They got out of the car and Steve took his shield from the backseat. Sharon scanned the area around with her phone, but got no readings whatsoever. 

“The file came from these coordinates,” she said, putting her phone back. 

“So did I,” Steve said, looking at the board that read CAMP LEHIGH.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so happy that people are actually reading this. You all have motivated me into increasing my pace of updates. I've grown up learning English my entire life, but at the end of the day it's not my birth tongue. (That'd be Urdu and a bit of Arabic!) So something tells me I might have made grammatical errors or got my phrases wrong. I'd really appreciate it if you can help me out with them.
> 
> also also also I CANT FIND A FACE FOR NEAL TAPPER WHAT THE HELL HELP ME!!!!


	5. The Parasite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve and Sharon uncover the past.

They broke into Camp Lehigh. They had committed so many felonies within a day, what was one more? Sharon scanned the place with her SHIELD-issued phone, and Steve followed behind.

“This camp is where I was trained,” he told her. 

“Change much?” she asked. 

His eyes fell on the empty flagpole. A dull ache that he had learned to smother broke out of it’s constraints. “A little,” he said. Across the field, Steve saw his past come to life.

_“Pick up the pace ladies! Let’s go!” Sergeant Duffy ran among the soldiers. He stopped at a certain point to assess the men. Several feet behind the group, a young, scrawny Steve struggled to catch up. His lungs felt as if they were on fire, and the heels of his feet felt like solid rock. Yet, he ran._

_“Come on! Fall in! Rogers!,” the sergeant howled. “I said fall in!”_

_Steve’s former self tried to speed up his pace, but he still fell behind the group. He noticed Steve, tall and broad, healthy and fit, and stopped in front of him, gawking in awe at his future self._

_“Roger! Fall in!”_

_The young man ran off to join the rest of the soldiers._

“This place is a dead end,” Sharon's voice snapped him out of his memories, and his past faded into the night. “I’ve got nothing here. No radio, no heat signatures.” Steve turned around to where she stood, and Sharon raised an eyebrow at his muddled expression. 

“What is it?” she asked. 

* * *

They walked to the building Steve didn’t recognise. “Army regulations forbid storing ammunition within five hundred yards of the barracks. This building is in the wrong place.”

Sharon was amazed at Steve’s razor-sharp memory. For him to remember such a tiny detail from a time that had long passed. _Then again it hasn’t been that long for him, has it?_ She thought. Steve broke the lock with his shield and they were met with a dark flight of stairs. Sharon found the light switch and flicked it on. She gasped when the room lit up and her eyes found a large, much older logo of SHIELD printed on the wall. 

“This is S.H.I.E.L.D.,” she said, astonished. 

“Maybe where it started,” Steve suggested. They walked around, and entered an office with portraits of founding members of SHIELD framed on the wall. There was a picture of Howard Stark, and a picture of Peggy next to his, along with others Sharon did not recognise. Sharon’s mind was racing with thoughts about how this would affect Steve. 

Steve didn’t stand in front of the portraits for too long, he shifted away to investigate the rest of the office. He heard more than felt a steady but low air current, coming from a gap between two massive bookshelves. Enhanced hearing was yet another effect of the serum. 

“If you're already working in a secret office…” he pushed the shelf and it slid away to reveal an elevator behind it, “why do you need to hide the elevator?” he mused. 

They were met with an ancient, dusty keypad that hadn’t been touched in decades. Sharon brought her phone up to the keypad, and a hologram displayed the pass-code. 

“That thing’s turned out to be quite handy,” Steve said.

“Where’s yours?”

“Threw it away, didn’t want them to trace me,” he said. 

“Ah well, I took my tracer out,” she shrugged. 

_Of course, she did_. 

They descended further into the building with the elevator. Neither of them were prepared for what awaited them. Sharon did not load her gun, but Steve steadied his shield, ready to face whatever awaited them down below. The elevator opened and in front of them was a large room filled with primitive computers. They got off of the lift and made their way to a monitor placed at the center and the lights around them automatically turned on. 

“This can't be the data-point, Rogers. This technology is ancient,” Sharon said. She scanned the room and found a slightly modern looking port for a USB drive and inserted the flash. Doing so activated the ancient computer in front of them, as well as several equipment that began lighting up all around the large room. 

“ ** _INITIATE SYSTEM_** _,_ ” the computer announced in a questioning tone. 

Sharon took to the keyboard in front of her and typed _yes_. Suddenly, an old camera situated above the monitor began rolling. First it faced Steve, and then it turned to Sharon. 

“ _Rogers, Steven. Born, 1918. Carter, Sharon. Born, 1986,_ ” the speakers of the computer cackled. 

Sharon couldn’t bring herself to believe that technology this ancient could be this enhanced. “It’s some kind of recording,” she said, convincing herself more than Steve. 

“ _I am not a recording, Fräulein. I may not be the man I was when the Captain took me prisoner in 1945, but I am._ ” 

The smaller monitor on the right showed the picture of an aged man, with a large forehead and round spectacles. She looked at Steve to get some notion of sense, but his features expressed the same amount of confusion as hers. “Do you know this thing?” she asked. 

Steve gave a small, single nod. “Arnim Zola was a German scientist who worked for the Red Skull. He's been dead for years.”

 _“First correction, I am Swiss. Second, look around you. I have never been more alive. In 1972 I received a terminal diagnosis. Science could not save my body, my mind, however, that was worth saving on two hundred thousand feet of data banks. You are standing in my brain,_ ” the computer explained in a thick accent. 

Sharon felt something in the atmosphere shift. Her gut told her something wasn’t right. Her heart began racing, and she couldn’t explain why. 

“How did you get here?” Steve asked. 

“ _Invited,_ ” the computer or...Arnim Zola announced in a rather exuberant tone. Sharon traced her left eyebrow with a single finger, trying to jog her memory. _Think, think, think_.

“Operation Paperclip,” she recalled. “After World War II, SHIELD recruited German scientists with strategic value.”

“ _They thought I could help their cause. I also helped my own_ ,” the scientist added to her statement. 

“HYDRA died with the Red Skull,” Steve interjected. 

The green, barely apparent face on the main screen morphed into the symbol of HYDRA. “ _Cut off one head, and two more shall take its place_.” and with that the symbol morphed back to two faces of Arnim Zola, instead of one. 

“Prove it,” Steve snapped. 

“ _Accessing archives… HYDRA was founded on the belief that humanity could not be trusted with its own freedom. What we did not realize, was that if you try to take that freedom, they resist. The war taught us much. Humanity needed to surrender its freedom willingly. After the war, SHIELD was founded and I was recruited. The new HYDRA grew. A beautiful parasite inside SHIELD. For seventy years HYDRA has been secretly feeding the crisis, reaping war.”_

Throughout his speech, pictures of the founder of HYDRA, footage of riots and battles, the cold war, the second world war, the founders of SHIELD, and newspaper clippings were displayed on the smaller screen to the left. 

“ _And when history did not cooperate, history was changed_.” An image of a man with a red star engraved on a metal arm appeared. The Winter Soldier. 

Sharon felt her throat tighten with anxiety. “That’s not possible, SHIELD would’ve stopped you,” she said. 

“ _Accidents_ ,” the computer said, with newspaper clippings announcing Howard Stark’s death, followed by Nick Fury’s death appeared “ _will happen,_ ” he finished. 

The revelation dropped on Sharon’s head like an ice cold bucket of water. She could feel every single hair on her arms and neck stand up. “ _HYDRA created a world so chaotic that humanity is finally ready to sacrifice its freedom to gain its security. Once the purification process is complete, HYDRA's new world order will arise._ ” 

Now, the computer displayed an image of Steve in battle and his face on a cover that read: The Man Who Sacrificed Everything. Steve’s chest rose and fell erratically.

“ _We won, Captain. Your death amounts to the same as your Life; a zero sum_.”

Steve punched the main monitor screen to shut Arnim Zola. 

“ _As I was saying,_ ” Zola’s face appeared on the second monitor. 

“What’s on this drive?” Sharon asked. 

“ _Project Insight requires insight. So I wrote an algorithm,_ ” Zola said. 

“What kind of algorithm?” she inquired. 

_“The answer to your question is fascinating. Unfortunately, you shall be too dead to hear it.”_

* * *

  
  


It had all happened so fast. Neal couldn't stop it. One second an agent alerted Sitwell that the flash had resurfaced and the next they had launched a short range ballistic. He dug his phone out and typed away a warning to Sharon. 

_Please, please, please, be okay._

He briefly looked at Cameron, who held his head in his hands. 

_Be okay._

* * *

The elevator welded shut after Zola’s threat. Steve flung his shield at the doors but it only bounced back, trapping them in. Sharon felt her phone vibrate. Neal’s text made her face go pale.

“Steve…” she said. 

He turned around, helpless and desperate. 

“They fired a short range ballistic. 30 seconds tops.” 

“Who?!”

“...S.H.I.E.L.D.”

“ _I am afraid I have been stalling, Captain. Admit it, it's better this way._ ”

Steve found an opening in the ground and pulled at the metal hatch until he sent it flying around. Sharon grabbed the drive from the port and ran to him.

 _“We're both of us...out of time_.”

She jumped into the opening and Steve hovered over her, using his shield the best he could to cover them both. The blast sent concrete and debris in all directions. Sharon pressed her head against his chest and covered her nose to block away the ash and dust. But, when she felt like she could no longer breath, she was forced to take a huge gulp of the ash filled air into her lungs. She coughed violently, her body trembled beneath Steve. The last thing Sharon remembered was his faint scream. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sam Wilson next chapter ugh. King thingz!
> 
> On the other hand... I know TFATWS won't be out anytime soon but I am craving for a trailer so so so badly. It was the only show I was looking forward to in 2020 (well, that and Bojack Horseman) and now i'm not interested in anything. Screw you, Corona!


	6. A Red Glove

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our blond duo finds shelter at Sam's. Later, Sharon makes a discovery.

When silence fell around them and the building stopped collapsing into itself, Steve shifted, trying to make sense of his position. He had wrapped himself around Sharon the best he could, but when he called for her, she remained unresponsive. 

“Sharon?” he asked again, nudging her arm gently.

Nothing. 

He tensed up and nervously pushed against the weight of the boulder above but to no avail. Steve felt utterly trapped in the tiny, pitch-black space. 

It took him back to his final moments aboard the Valkyrie. The dark. The confinement. Dread being the final thought in his mind as he slipped into unconsciousness. He shook the thought away. There was too much at stake, and it all depended on him, he couldn’t let panic get the best of him. 

He pressed two fingers against Sharon's throat to feel her pulse. It was steady. 

Steve nodded to himself in relief. He felt like he still had some control over their situation. He exhaled loudly and tried to push the boulder away, this time with all the strength he could muster. He grunted and yelped and pushed until the boulder was out of their way, producing an opening large enough to climb out of. He peeped from the hole and looked around. Fire illuminated Camp Lehigh and smoke enveloped the air around. In the distance, the pick-up truck sat unharmed by the explosion. 

Steve scooped Sharon in his arms and emerged out of the hole, careful with every step.

The sound of choppers cut through the air just as they got out and Steve made a run for the truck and lay Sharon on the backseat. He didn’t dare to turn on the headlights until they were a mile away from the camp.

\---

Sharon's eyes shot open in the back seat. Every muscle in her body screamed in pain and her chest felt heavy. She wiped the sweat and along with it a stray strand of hair stuck to her forehead and sat up, but immediately grabbed the door for support as her head spinned. 

Steve's eyes met hers in the rear view mirror. “You okay?” He asked.

“Mm,” Sharon managed, afraid that if she spoke he'd know how  _ not _ okay she was. She couldn't see much of him in the dark, but she spotted soot covering the side of his chin. The whole car smelled of...well...a burnt building. The smell was sharp and it made Sharon sick to her stomach. 

“Get some rest,” Steve said. “We have a long way to go.” 

Sharon gulped, her throat felt thick. She fell onto the seat and turned away, her back to Steve’s seat. 

“Where are we going?” her voice croaked.

“I know someone.”

The second time she woke was when the truck came to a halt. Steve opened the door for her. She followed him into the backyard of a house. There were a thousand things Sharon could ask and a thousand more on her mind, but her eyes felt heavy and her head was spinning and all she could think of was not having to watch her back. She was exhausted beyond comprehension and had caught only a small amount of sleep crammed up in the backseat. 

Steve knocked on the back door of a small and tidy house. It had no backyard and behind them a group of schoolkids were playing basketball on the road. 

After some time had passed, a young black man, possibly late twenties, slid his glass door open. 

“Hey man,” he was perplexed to see the two of them. 

“I’m sorry for this. We need a place to lay low,” Steve explained. 

“Everyone wants us dead,” Sharon added to Steve’s plea. The man stepped aside and fully slid his door. 

“Not everyone,” he said.

“Sharon, this is Sam Wilson,” Steve said once they were inside. Sam stuck his hand out to her and she shook it firmly. 

They followed Sam to his bedroom where he handed them fresh towels and whatever clothes he could salvage from his wardrobe. Steve let Sharon go first, insisting that she needed it more than him. It didn’t take much convincing, she was inside the bathroom with a single nudge. She gripped the marble sink and stared at her reflection in the mirror. What was once a ponytail was now rumpled and mussed with dirt sticking in patches. She peeled off her clothes one by one until she stood bare in the mirror and noticed the damage their little road trip had caused. Surprisingly, it didn’t look as bad as it hurt. There was one large, ugly bruise on her shoulder, where a concrete slab had hit her, and there were small cuts here and there. 

She let the shower run for a bit before letting her head and eventually her body get wet. She sighed with satisfaction and turned the shower off when she felt like she might fall asleep standing. 

There was a lot to be unpacked, a lot that she had shut down in a box deep inside, afraid of how she might react if it got out. __

_ S.H.I.E.L.D. _

She had given her heart, soul, sweat and blood for her career. She had lied and fought her way out of missions more times than she could recall.  _ And for what? For who? For S.H.I.E.L.D.? Or for Hydra? _

Tears formed in the corner of her eyes and she started the shower again until she could smother the constant feeling of dread away.  _ Now is not the time,  _ she thought to herself. She put on a tank top and khaki trousers lended by their host. 

Sharon emerged from the bathroom with her head stooped low and a towel in her hand. Steve brushed past her. He had gotten rid of his jacket and hoodie while she was gone. She sat on the edge of Sam’s and gently dried her hair strand by strand. 

Steve, she noticed, didn’t close the door behind him. He stood in front of the sink and began rinsing his face, followed by his hands and forearms. That tank top did wonders to his figure-

_ Nope. No. Not going there.  _

Sharon looked away from his reflection before he could notice. He must’ve caught on to her silence and her disheartened countenance, because he slowly approached the chair in front of her. He momentarily looked at her unpleasant bruise before looking back at her. The greens were slowly morphing to a nasty purple. 

“You okay?” he asked for the second time that day before sitting on the chair in front of her. 

Sharon felt a dull pain throb in her throat the second he asked her. Her smothered feelings bubbled to the surface and she looked at the ceiling as if to stop the tears from flowing out. 

“I was until you asked me that,” she responded. It was a wonder her voice didn’t quiver. 

“What’s going on?” His voice was so soft, so gentle and comforting. She wasn’t sure she had heard him speak like that before. 

“I have done a lot...for S.H.I.E.L.D. I’ve lied, I've killed. And at one point I would’ve happily given my life for it. But now...I’m not so sure whose work I was doing. If I was doing the right thing at all. I-,” she sighed, “I can’t tell the difference.” 

“Well, there’s a chance you might be in the wrong business,” he was smirking now. She gave him a small smile and shook her head slightly. When the throbbing ache in her throat had finally subsided, her eyes fixed a gaze on his. 

“I owe you,” she said. 

“No, no, it’s okay,” he responded, not looking away either.

“I know this is hard for you. I know you’re still not past my  _ job _ . But, if things were different, if it was upto me to save your life, and I want you to answer honestly, would you trust me to do it?” she asked. 

“I would now,” he admitted and leaned back into the chair, “and I’m always honest.” 

He was smiling now, which made her smile in turn. She nodded and put the small hand towel down. The room fell silent until Sam’s voice cut through them.

“I made breakfast,” he announced. “If you guys...eat that sort of thing.”

\---

They didn't bring up the past twenty-four hours at the table, not until they had finished eating. Sharon managed to swallow a single bite of her breakfast before giving up and offering her plate to Steve. That's when she began pacing in Sam's living room and Steve brought the revelation up. 

“How did you know about the missile?” Steve asked. 

“I received a signal from a contact at S.H.I.E.L.D.” she explained. “I haven’t received anything since, so the question is, who would have launched the missile strike?”

“Pierce,” Steve said, fully resolved. 

“And he’s sitting on top of the most secure building in the world,” Sharon pointed. 

“He’s not working alone,” Steve said. “Zola's algorithm was on the Lemurian Star, and so was Sitwell…” 

Sharon leaned on the dining chair. “So, the real question is: how do the two most wanted people in Washington kidnap a SHIELD officer in broad daylight?” 

Sam left the table and came back with a file. “The answer is: you don’t.” he dropped the file in front of Steve and stood upright, like a soldier ready to march. 

“What’s this?” Steve asked. 

“Call it a resume,” Sam offered. Sharon examined the photo of Sam in the file and her brain clicked. 

“Is this Bakhmala? The Khalid Khandil mission,  _ that was you? _ ” she asked and then turned to Steve, “You didn't say he was a para-rescue.” 

Steve was looking at the photo all the same, but with an expression Sharon couldn’t make out. 

“Is this Riley?” he asked. 

“Yeah,” Sam nodded. 

“I heard they couldn’t bring choppers because of the RPGs. What did you use then?” Sharon asked. 

Sam handed Steve the file, and Steve flipped from page to page until his eyes caught an image of metallic wings. 

“I thought you said you were a pilot,” Steve remarked. 

“I never said pilot,” Sam replied. 

Steve contemplated for a moment and then shook his head. “I can't ask you to do this, Sam. You got out for a good reason,” he insisted. 

“Dude, Captain America needs my help. There's no better reason to get back in,” Sam said. 

Steve closed the file and looked between Sharon and Sam. The two seemed determined to follow him to battle and beyond. “Where can we get our hands on one of these things?” he finally asked. 

“The last one is at Fort Meade, behind a guarded gate and a twelve-inch steel wall,” Sam explained. 

Steve raised a questioning eyebrow at Sharon, wondering if she were up to the task and she just shrugged her shoulders. 

“Shouldn't be a problem,” Steve announced.

\--

“You ready?” Sharon asked as they stood outside the military facility. 

“Ladies first,” Steve challenged, gesturing at the high wall. 

“Alright. Boost me, Captain.”

Steve stood with his back against the wall and placed his hands on his knees to offer Sharon a platform. She climbed the wall, and with both legs dangling on either sides, she offered Steve a hand. 

The base had a skeleton crew. It was a storage space of sorts, holding on to unused or failed prototypes and various equipment that never got manufactured beyond a couple pieces. 

Sharon aimed her phone at the first camera they ran into and disabled it with a few clicks. They were both armed if it came to that, but this was a game of cat and mouse. If they remained undetected, they could walk away without a fight. 

“This is it,” Steve said as they stood outside a large metal door. Sharon used her phone, again, to get the passcode for the room. She clicked in the right numbers and the metal wall slid open without producing a single sound. 

They stood before the wings, hooked on a wall with a large metal plate that read EXO-7 FALCON beneath it. Sharon surveyed the room. There were several awkward looking guns and equipment displayed, each with their own metal plate and stand. The only item that stood out was a red glove, named Satan Claw. 

While Steve unhooked the wings with one hand and grabbed the jetpack with the other, Sharon fit the metallic glove on her left hand. She pressed the only button on the glove and it immediately took control of her fingers and began clawing and scratching at the air like a ferocious animal. 

Steve spun around at the sound, gawking at the blood red glove’s mechanism and Sharon immediately turned it off. 

“I’m keeping it,” she said, stunned but working her way through the new discovery. 

They made a run for Sam, who had the car running, ready and waiting for their getaway. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I just ruin the entire origin of Satan Claw? Yes, I did. I wanted to insert a picture of Sharon wearing the Satan Claw in the comics but I can't figure out how to insert an image.


	7. The Highway

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A gruesome encounter with the Winter Soldier and a test of Sharon's best abilities.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am TRULY sorry for making you guys wait for so long.

Sharon stood behind a window, with her sniper in position. Sitwell would soon receive a call from Sam who was already seated across the entrance, and Steve had the car running around the corner of the restaurant. She waited for the signal and then aimed her sniper at Sitwell. The red dot pinned on his tie was enough to lure him into the car. Sharon packed away her sniper and met Sam on their way to his car.

“Sniper did the trick  _ real good _ ,” he chuckled, opening the door. Sharon opted to sit on the nervous agent’s side. 

After that it was riding an escalator with him, ignoring his baffling and muttering until they gained access to the roof. Steve opened the door to the rooftop and threw Jasper Sitwell across the ground. 

“Tell me about Zola’s algorithm,” Steve began his interrogation in his oh so very Captain America voice. 

“Never heard of it,” Sitwell claimed, though the stutter in his speech and his shivering, nervous body said otherwise. 

“What were you doing on the Lemurian Star?” Steve asked again, wasting no time. 

“Throwing up, I get seasick,” he quipped. Sharon crossed her arms, he thought he had the upper hand here, but he had no idea what the three had intended for him. He was having his moment, and they let him stay in that illusion. 

Steve grabbed Sitwell by his collars and dragged him along the roof until he stood at the edge. The act made Sitwell smile. He knew the good old, righteous, never do wrong Captain America wasn’t going to throw him off the roof. 

“Is this little display meant to insinuate that you're gonna throw me off the roof? Because it's really not your style, Rogers.”

Steve loosened his grip and began flattening Sitwell’s crumpled collar. 

“You’re right. It’s not. It’s hers.” 

Sitwell looked at Sharon and his all knowing smirk disappeared. Sharon sent him flailing and screaming down with a single clean kick. Steve turned to her. 

“So, were you on other missions while you were assigned to me?” Steve asked. 

“No, and that’s why you were the most boring assignment I had ever had,” Sharon sighed, looking down at the high drop from the edge. 

He scoffed. He wondered why she was undercover as a nurse out of all things, and made up his mind to bring it up again sometime. 

Sitwell’s screams got louder and clear as Sam swooped through the sky and dropped him on the roof. They walked towards Sitwell, who raised his hands in fear. Behind them, Sam landed gracefully. 

“Zola's algorithm is a program,” Sitwell said, and took a huge gulp of air, “For choosing Insight's targets!” 

“What targets?” asked Steve. 

“You!” he yelled back, “A TV anchor in Cairo, the Undersecretary of Defense, a high school valedictorian in Iowa city. Bruce Banner, Stephen Strange,” he blurted out the list, “Anyone who's a threat to HYDRA! Now, or in the future.”

Steve frowned. “The Future? How could it know?”

Sitwell let out a breathless laugh. “How could it not? The 21st century is a digital book. Zola taught HYDRA how to read it.” Steve and Sharon exchanged a glance as he continued. “Your bank records, medical histories, voting patterns, e-mails, phone calls, your damn SAT scores. Zola's algorithm evaluates people's past to predict their future.” 

“And what then?” Steve asked. 

Sitwell’s eyes went wide with fear. “Oh, my God. Pierce is going to kill me.”

“What then!?” Steve demanded. 

“Then…the Insight Helicarriers scratch people off the list. A few million at a time.” 

* * *

The three dragged Sitwell back to the car, with Sharon aiming the mouth of her gun at Sitwell’s back. Sam drove them off to their next destination: The Triskelion. 

“HYDRA doesn't like leaks,” Sitwell finally spoke out. 

“So why don't you try sticking a cork in it.” Sam said. 

Sharon sheathed her gun and looked at her phone, they were running out of time. She slightly rose from her seat. “Guys, Insight's launching in sixteen hours, we're cutting it a little bit close here,” she warned. 

“I know,” Steve said, “We'll use him to bypass the DNA scans and access the Helicarriers directly.”

“What!? That is a terrible,  _ terrible  _ ide-” a loud thud on the roof of their car interrupted Sitwell’s grousing. A metal hand broke through the window on Sitwell’s side, grabbed him and flung him onto the highway.  _ The Winter Soldier _ . Sitwell’s scream was cut short by his body hitting an oncoming truck. 

Sharon saw a flash of boots and jumped from her seat to the front of the car, onto Steve’s lap, closely dodging the assassin’s aim from above. She grabbed Steve’s head and pulled it away from the headrest and with her foot kicked Sam’s shoulder, making both of them dodge bullets aimed for their heads. 

Steve’s quick thinking played into motion and he pulled the car’s hand brake, sending the Winter Soldier falling before them. The man with the metal arm still managed to land on his feet, his arm gliding across the road, fingers engraving the tar. He rose then, slowly, his entire face hidden behind a mask and dark goggles.

Seeing that he stood still, Sharon aimed for him, but another car smashed into theirs and pushed them along the road, and Sharon lost her grip on the gun. As their car skidded towards him, he jumped and landed on the roof of the car with his entire body, pushing the roof inward in the process. Sharon tried to get hold of her gun, but all her hand found was either Steve’s leg or his boots. 

The Winter Soldier's arm smashed through the windscreen and grabbed the steering wheel. With one swift motion, he jerked the steering wheel away from Sam’s hands and threw it at the traffic. 

“Oh, shit!” Sam screamed, having lost the only means to control the car. Meanwhile Sharon finally found her gun and shot at the masked man, but he jumped onto the car behind that had been dragging them along the highway. 

The car slowed down and then rammed into Sam’s car again. Without a steering wheel, their car ran out of control and hit the Jersey barrier. Without wasting a second, Steve pulled Sharon closer by her jacket and grabbed Sam and broke the car’s door, sending the three sliding across the road on it. The rest of the car spun out of control on the highway. 

Sam’s body was barely on the door, he lost balance and rolled on the road. Steve held on to Sharon until friction halted the sliding door. Just as they stood up, the Winter Soldier aimed a grenade launcher at them and upon notice, Steve pushed Sharon out of the way. The grenade struck Steve’s shield and sent him flying off the bridge.

Sharon yelled as she ducked for cover behind one of the cars. The men accompanying HYDRA’s assassin fired their machine guns all at once. Sharon shot back, but her glock couldn’t fare well with their heavy guns. The Winter Soldier shot another grenade at her, and she jumped over the concrete barrier to get cover. She could not stand her ground, not here. Feeling her gadget in her hand, Sharon made a run for it. She leapt over the edge of the bridge, activating her grapple hook that aided her landing. 

As she ran beneath the bridge, she caught the Winter Soldier’s shadow on the ground. She pulled out another gun from her holster and stopped directly beneath the bridge and shot up at him with both her guns. She must have hit him somewhere, because he fell back. Instead of waiting for him to show up again, she took cover behind a truck, ready to aim if he rose again. 

He did emerge again, this time enraged and without his goggles.  _ All that ammo and it didn’t do shit _ , she thought. 

He emptied an entire clip, aiming directly beneath the bridge, but this time Sharon had changed her cover and shot at him from behind the parked truck, catching him off guard again. 

With her cover now made, she had no choice but to run. It was better this way for her. Easier to handle one man than the entire horde of machine gun enthusiasts. 

She had one last trick up her sleeve, but it would cost her SHIELD phone. With very little time on her side, she hurriedly put the emergency recording on and left her phone next to the car parked on the road. She herself hid behind the opposite car, waiting to strike. 

She saw the Winter Soldier arrive on foot and slowly approach the source of her sound, a recording in which she asked for back-up. He produced a ball-like device and tossed it at the source. Within seconds, it exploded with the ferocity of a powerful grenade. 

_ Now.  _

She slid over the bumper of the car and jumped onto him, kicking his gun out of his hand and disarming him. She grabbed his shoulders for leverage and settled her legs on them, criss crossing them at his throat. She stretched out the metal wire she had housed in one of her pockets and tried to wrap it around his neck, but his hand managed to get in the way. 

She still tightened her grip, hoping to cause at least  _ some  _ damage. 

The soldier struggled beneath her weight and staggered until his back met a car. He used the position to his advantage, grabbed a hold of Sharon’s elbow with his free hand and pulled her off of him. Her body soared through the air and slammed into a car before meeting the ground with a bone-aching thump. 

She had no fight in her. Every muscle, every bone, every joint was on fire. The only thought that got her up and running was that Steve and Sam were still nearby. This was not over. She was out of tricks and out of gadgets. 

A nervous crowd of men and women ran wild on the road as she sprinted away. 

“Get out of the way!” she yelled, knowing damn well the Winter Soldier had not given up. “Stay out of the way!” And neither had she. The next best option was to put distance between her and HYDRA’s infamous assassin. 

Sharon was hopeful, until a bullet lodged into her shoulder and she fell on her knees, gasping for air and shuddering in pain. 

There was no sign of him. 

The exhaustion, the pain, the smell of blood and the never ending fear of her awaiting fate reminded her of a different day. The memory flickered in her mind for a moment. 

* * *

**Five years ago.**

They’d been on the road for two days now. Natasha was on the wheel for time being as Sharon rested her head back, laughing at an incident the nuclear engineer explained of his time in Iran. They were taking a sharp turn on a rather rocky road when they heard a gun go off multiple times and their tires gave out. Nat tried to gain control of the vehicle yet in a single blink the car went straight over the cliff. Sharon held on to her buckled seat belt as the car overturned once and then again. The only person without a seat belt was the very engineer they were supposed to be safely escorting. 

“You okay?” Nat asked the engineer. 

“Uhhhh,” he groaned. 

“You’re fine,” she said.

Sharon grunted and tried to looked around, while Nat kicked the window. She helped Sharon out and turned the safety of her gun off, while Sharon helped the engineer out. He had a huge gash on his temple. She helped him sit down beside a rock. He was awake but definitely shaken.

“Sharon…” Nat said. 

Sharon turned around and saw who had shot their tires out. 

A metal arm and a masked face. He held a gun the likes of which Sharon had never seen before. Natasha approached, ready to engage, but the man had other plans. One shot and one smoke bomb later, Sharon collapsed onto the dirt ground gasping, clutching her side, anything to make the pain stop. She blinked and felt a low thud of a body falling. She turned her head to her right, the engineer’s body was sprawled next to hers. Blood slowly oozed out of his head and onto the ground. 

Nat hovered over her, begging her to hang on, with a walkie in hand, requesting medical aid. 

* * *

**Present**

A loud clunk made her spin her head around. The Winter Soldier had jumped onto a car and was aiming at her. His final shot. 

She heard racing footsteps grow louder.

_ Steve.  _

The Winter Soldier heard them too. Steve charged at him, until he stood on the same car as him. He aimed a punch and Steve blocked it with his shield. 

Agitated, the Winter Soldier yanked the shield out of his way and kicked Steve in the chest, sending him tumbling on the ground back first. 

A new wave of adrenaline got Sharon up. That and a burning passion to put an end to this ghost story for once and for all. 


	8. Better Than Nothing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The ghost is unmasked and Sharon thinks this is the end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for waiting, I know I take my time with these.

Sharon staggered away from the fight, her mind on the weapons HYDRA had left scattered behind. She had only walked past a block when Sam landed in front of her. He had the grenade launcher The Winter Soldier had dropped earlier in his hands. 

“Shit,” he said breathlessly, looking at her wound. 

“I know,” she struggled.

“This is all I could get,” he handed her the launcher, “You sure you got this?”

“Yes. Steve’s occupied behind us. I’ll hit from the South, you fly over and engage from the North,” Sharon instructed.

Sam nodded and took flight. 

* * *

Sharon reached the junction, feeling more and more lightheaded with every step. To her surprise, she saw Steve standing still. Whatever words he exchanged with the Winter Soldier never reached her. She had to lean on an abandoned SUV to aim at the target. 

The lingering stillness between them felt heavy and utterly confusing for Sharon. Just as the soldier aimed at Steve, Sam flew in and kicked him away. Steve stood unresponsive. Sharon wanted to yell at him, to tell him to do something. The Winter Soldier rose and took aim at Steve’s head again, but this time, Sharon fired the launcher. 

Steve’s enhanced senses alerted him and he  _ finally _ moved, ducking behind his shield. The explosion erupted amidst the junction and with the rising smoke, the Winter Soldier vanished. 

Sirens surrounded them, followed by what Sharon assumed was HYDRA disguised in SHIELD vans. The soldiers were following Rumlow, who had his gun trained on Steve the moment he got out of the van. 

“Drop the shield, Cap! On your knees! Get on your knees! Now!” Rumlow barked like a dog. He kicked Steve’s leg, and without a hint of resistance, Steve knelt down. They grabbed Sam and stripped him off of his wings, throwing both him and his gear in the van. 

Sharon dropped the launcher slowly, as a group of armed agents approached her, cuffed her and sent her into the van. 

* * *

Steve’s restraints were entirely different from Sam and Sharon’s. Heavy metal clamped his legs, followed by his torso and arms. He could only move his head, but that too hung low. Sharon had her head leaning against the wall of the van, lost in her own thoughts. 

“It was him,” Steve said.

Sharon turned her head without lifting it. 

“Who?” she asked.

“Bucky…He looked right at me like he didn't even know me,” he said. 

Sharon gulped, not audibly, she hoped. Steve’s numbness, unwilling to protect himself, it made sense now. She’d seen too much to not believe him. If aliens could invade the earth, then someone from seventy years ago could still be alive today. 

“How's that even possible? It was like seventy years ago,” Sam tried to reason. 

“Zola. Bucky's whole unit was captured in '43, Zola experimented on him. Whatever he did helped Bucky survive the fall. They must have found him and…” 

“Rogers,” Sharon spoke, as softly as she could, slowly raising her head to look at him, “none of that is on you.” 

“Even when I had nothing, I had Bucky.” he said with a sad grimace, like remembering a time only he knew of. 

This was it. This was their dead end. Insight was launching tomorrow. And they were cuffed up in a van. She knew they weren’t being taken to the Triskelion, most probably an underground HYDRA base, where they would be prisoned at best or executed at worst. 

Sharon rested her head against the wall again. She doubted she’d make this ride awake. 

“We need to get a doctor here. We don't put pressure on that wound she's gonna bleed out here in the truck,” Sam said. Sharon wanted to laugh. It didn’t matter, they would be dead before nightfall anyway. 

One of the soldiers pulled out an electric baton at Sam and he flinched back. The soldier then rammed it into his partner and kicked them in the head. The unconscious body fell between their legs. 

_ What the hell was that? _ Sharon thought. 

Mariah Hill unmasked herself, grunting as she struggled with the helmet. 

“That thing was squeezing my brain,” she complained, swooping away her fringes. This time Sharon did laugh.

Maria exchanged looks between Steve and Sam.

_ “Who's this guy?” _

* * *

Maria held a device that cut through the van’s floor, a cackling beam of energy. Sharon’s mind was too out of it to focus on the logistics and working of a weird ass lightsaber, so she quietly got along with it. They got out one by one, Maria helping Sharon. 

She led them to another SHIELD van, most likely one she must have salvaged. Everyone was too beat up to speak. Sharon pressed her wound gently from within her jacket and stared blankly at the bloody hand that came out of it. She wiped the blood on her jeans, but was left with stained fingers. 

  
  


“Let me take a look,” Steve asked softly and Sharon nodded. She unzipped her leather jacket and Steve gently pushed it off of her shoulder until he could see her wound. He turned to Maria, who was driving them away from this whole mess. 

“Where are we going, Hill?” he asked. 

“Just out of the city. Got a doctor on site. Here,” she handed him a first aid kit, her eyes remained trained at the road ahead of them. 

* * *

The van came to a stop, surrounded by woods. Maria slid the door open for them. Steve helped Sharon out and supported most of her weight. Sam took to her other side, with a gentle hand on the elbow of her good arm. Maria opened a steel door and they followed. A small, stout man with thick spectacles ran in the hallway towards them. 

“GSW. She's lost at least a pint,” Maria said, referring to Sharon's wound.

“Maybe two,” Sam interjected. 

“Let me take her,” the doctor said. Maria shook her head, walking faster. “She’ll want to see him first.”

Steve glanced between Maria and Sharon, just as confused as the latter. They took a turn and Maria stopped in front of thick curtains before pulling them, revealing a battered and bruised Nick Fury on a bed, and Natasha sitting next to him. 

“What the fuck,” Sharon gasped under her breath, at first thinking she was seeing things. But then she heard Fury’s voice, and it felt like a pinch to the arm that brought her back to reality. 

“About damn time,” the Director announced.

Sharon took a deep breath, her mind was threatening to explode. She recalled the night he had shown up, was it last night? Or the night before that? The doctor offered her a chair and began cleaning her wound, while she stared blankly between Fury and Natasha. 

“Lacerated spinal column, cracked sternum, shattered collarbone, perforated liver, one hell of a headache,” Fury listed. 

“Don't forget your collapsed lung,” the spectacled Doctor reminded him.

“Oh, let's not forget that. Otherwise, I'm good.”

Sharon built up the courage to speak, the anger and frustration of being kept in the dark settling into a low hum in her mind. She would voice her feelings soon, she thought, but not yet. 

“They pronounced you dead. Your heart stopped,” she said through clenched jaws. 

“Tetrodotoxin B. Slows the pulse to one beat a minute. Banner developed it for stress. Didn't work so great for him, but we found a use for it,” he explained.

Sharon huffed and then grunted when the doctor began stitching her wound. 

“Why all the secrecy? Why not just tell us?” Steve asked. 

“Any attempt on the director's life had to look successful,” Maria answered. 

“Can't kill you if you're already dead. Besides, I wasn't sure who to trust,” Nick added. 

The last words hit Sharon like a dagger in the back. Her anger wasn’t a hum anymore. It was loud like the roaring wind before a storm.

* * *

Eventually, Nick got up. They all came around. Sharon was offered a chair, Sam and Steve opted to stand. Natasha sat with Nick, a whole lot awfully quiet. 

Fury had a photo of Pierce in his hand. He looked at it for a while, formulating his thoughts. 

“This man declined the Nobel Peace Prize. He said, "Peace wasn't an achievement, it was a responsibility." See, it's stuff like this that gives me trust issues,” Fury said. 

“Why a nurse?” Steve asked, gathering everyone’s attention towards him. “Out of all things, why a nurse?”

Sharon would’ve answered, but her own anger at Fury stopped her from setting her foot in this conversation. 

“I think you know why,” Nick said, throwing Pierce’s photo onto the table. 

Steve glared at Nick Fury and took a step back in realisation. His mother had been a nurse, and he had admired her for it. The fact that Fury had taken something so personal from his life to brainwash him was sickening. 

“I told you I didn’t want any security,” Steve said firmly. 

“Did you know, the Serpent Society wanted to assassinate you in retaliation to what happened last year?” Nick asked. 

Steve took his hands out of his pockets and looked at Sharon, who merely gave several tiny nods, remembering the incident. 

“No, I’m sure you didn’t know because Agent Thirteen and Agent Russel interjected before they could break in. Maybe, you could have handled it on your own, but sometimes, it’s nice to have a little peace and quiet,” Nick finished. 

“Can we do this another time?” Natasha spoke for the first time since the group had gotten here. “We have to stop the launch,” she reminded everybody. She shared an awkward glance with Sharon, before eyeing Nick. 

“I don't think the Council's accepting my calls anymore,” Nick said, changing the subject. He opened the briefcase on the table and turned it around. From her seat, Sharon caught a glimpse of three metallic chips. 

“What’s that?” Sam asked. 

“Once the Helicarriers reach three thousand feet, they'll triangulate with Insight satellites becoming fully weaponized,” explained Maria. 

“We need to breach those carriers and replace their targeting blades with our own,” Nick added. 

“One or two won't cut it. We need to link all three carriers for this to work, because if even one of those ships remains operational…a whole lot of people are gonna die,” Maria warned. 

“We have to assume everyone aboard those carriers is HYDRA. We need to get past them, insert the server blades, and maybe, just maybe, we can salvage what's left-”

“We’re not salvaging anything,” Steve cut Nick before he could finish. “We're not just taking down the carriers, Nick, we're taking down SHIELD.”

“SHIELD had nothing to do with it,” Nick tried to reason. 

“You gave me this mission, this is how it ends. SHIELD's been compromised, you said so yourself. HYDRA grew right under your nose and nobody noticed,” Steve’s voice gained an octave. 

Sharon settled back in her chair, contemplating what this meant for SHIELD, what it meant for Aunt Peggy’s legacy. 

“Why do you think we're meeting in this cave? _ I noticed _ .”

“And how many paid the price before you did?” Steve asked.

Nick dropped his head, unable to meet Steve’s eyes. 

“Look, I didn't know about Barnes,” he answered. 

“Even if you had, would you have told me? Or would you have compartmentalized that too? SHIELD, HYDRA, it all goes.”

“He’s right,” Maria said. Nick looked at Sharon, and she answered with a steel g aze of her own, too pissed at him to give a nod. He looked at Natasha, who folded her arms and shrugged coolly, and finally, he looked at Sam. 

“Don’t look at me, I do what he does…just slower,” the new addition to their team said. 

Nick settled back on his chair, defeated. “Well,” he said, “Looks like you're giving the orders now, Captain.” 

* * *

Steve left without a word, and Sam shortly after. Sharon was left alone, fidgeting with her foot. Nick approached her rather carefully. He settled on the table in front of her. 

“I reckon you’re upset about not being in on this,” he began. Sharon stopped shaking her leg and sat upright. 

She understood the circumstances, but if  _ Neal _ could warn her about a bogey while being at the headquarters, then logistically, Fury should’ve at least found a way to inform her. 

“I don’t care about being included, Nick. I just wish you would’ve trusted me enough to tell me,” Sharon said, voice at the edge of breaking. Nick held his head low and nodded. 

“I had to keep the circle small,” he spoke at last.

“Still,” she insisted, “I should’ve known.”

* * *

It was dark outside. Sam was already on his cot, forearm covering his eyes, Steve still hadn’t returned, and normally, Sharon would have worried, but after everything that had happened today, she wouldn’t blame him even if he’d decided to run off and never look back.

She sat on the edge of her cot, and thought about her time at SHIELD. She could never sleep before a mission, and this was so much more than just a mission. This was a matter of life and death. This was about bringing HYDRA down, hopefully for once and for all. 

Tomorrow, the world as she knew it would be changed forever. She wondered what would happen if Aunt Peggy found out about all of this. With her hatred for HYDRA, perhaps she’d lead the team to take down the agency herself, legacy be damned. 

Sharon was playing with the string of her sleeve when Natasha came and sat on the cot in front of her. 

“Hey,” she said. 

Sharon smiled softly. “Hi.”

“How did he take it?” Natasha asked, and Sharon understood she meant Steve and her job. 

This is what Sharon loved about their dynamic, they understood each other with minimum indications and communication, it worked well out in the field as well as their friendship. 

“Pretty badly at first, but…we’re okay now,” Sharon said. 

“Does he know about…” Nat asked, revolving her index finger at Sharon. 

“Oh! Yeah. Once my cover was out I came clean about my name too,” Sharon explained. “I needed him to trust me, so I got the whole thing out of the way.”

“How did he take  _ that _ ?” 

“I don’t think he had the time to,” Sharon admitted. “There was a lot going on, I just threw my name out in the open and that was that,” she said, shrugging her good shoulder. 

Nat nodded and stood slowly, she placed a hand on Sharon’s shoulder and squeezed it gently. She took her place in her own cot, and Sharon could briefly hear Sam talk to her. 

* * *

They’d turned the lights off for quite some time. Sharon had shut her eyes for so long, but sleep never came. She heard the gentle rustling of boots coming off behind her, and turned to see Steve’s silhouette, seated on the cot. 

“Where were you?” she whispered, slowly getting up herself. 

“Had to find a uniform,” he said. Sharon decided to not probe any further. 

“Why are you still up?” he asked. 

“Can’t fall asleep,” she said. 

She figured Steve’s head nod in the darkness and laid down on her back again. She stayed still for a moment before turning to her side, away from him. 

“Thank you,” he whispered after a long, long pause. It was a wonder she heard him at all. She flipped sides to face him. He was giving the ceiling a long, thoughtful stare. 

“ _ What? _ ” she asked, confused at the unexpected gratitude. 

“There were times,” he began, taking his time with each word, “I thought…I would lose my mind in that apartment.”

Sharon recalled the utter silence at his place on most nights. She’d anxiously go over all the different scenarios and scheduled interactions, hoping to give him some kind of human interaction outside of SHIELD. And it sucked that she was SHIELD too and it was nothing short of an illusion, but it was something. And in this job, something was always better than nothing. 

She nodded. “It’s okay.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ngl I cringed a little bit when I decided to read this from the beginning. BUT I like the direction I'm taking this in for now. The grammar on this one might be messy, so from the bottom of my heart, my bad <3
> 
> You guys can find my on twitter: @alenelabanela or at insta @thirteen.mp4 xx


	9. The Triskelion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sharon Carter through the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This might be hard to comprehend if you guys haven't seen TWS (which is impossible). Mainly because I only focused on Sharon, we already know what happens between Steve and Bucky, or how Sam takes on Rumlow. Also, let me make something very clear. In this uh series (?) Nick Fury does not lose his eye because a cat scratched him. No way. I love you Captain Marvel (2019) but nu-uh.

Sharon flew the team over D.C. and expertly landed them on a small patch of clearing amidst woodland. Before giving her seat up to Fury, who was meant to fly the chopper up to Triskelion’s helipad, she offered him a hand and smiled faintly. Somewhere deep down, Sharon held a tiny bit of a grudge against him for everything that had happened. But, she smothered the feeling for the sake of the mission. At the end of the day, Nick _was_ family. Long before she had joined S.H.I.E.L.D. and long before she even started the academy. When she was just a kid who relished in her great-aunt's spy stories. When said spy would visit and she'd stare in awe at his eye-patch and how he'd mess her hair on his way to Aunt Peggy's study. 

“Don’t die, for real, this time,” she said. 

“Don’t go all soft on me now, Carter,” he responded with the hint of a sly smile.  Steve gave a solemn nod before disembarking the chopper and the rest of the team followed. 

* * *

There were a thousand ways into the building; all, Steve realised, undiscovered by him. They walked around several underground and abandoned hallways, taking turns left and right and Steve began losing track, until they stopped in front of a locked room. Maria pressed a single button in her hand and collective grunts and yelps were heard from behind the door. A few moments later, a scrawny man opened the door and raised his hands in shock. 

“Excuse us,” Steve said. The man nervously stepped aside.

Sharon and Maria had their guns raised, which was more than enough to intimidate all the technicians present in the office. Sharon waved her gun towards the exit and they all scampered away.  Maria took her seat in front of the several monitors and punched in a few keys. She gave Steve a thumbs up as Sharon scanned the system for surveillance footage of the twenty third floor. 

“Attention all SHIELD agents,” Steve began, and even Sharon turned away from her quest of finding Neal. 

“This is Steve Rogers. You've heard a lot about me over the last few days, some of you were even ordered to hunt me down. But I think it's time you know the truth. SHIELD is not what we thought it was, it's been taken over by HYDRA. Alexander Pierce is their leader. The STRIKE and Insight crew are HYDRA as well. I don't know how many more, but I know they're in the building. They could be standing right next to you. They almost have what they want: absolute control. They shot Nick Fury and it won't end there. If you launch those Helicarriers today, HYDRA will be able to kill anyone that stands in their way, unless we stop them.” 

With his hands on the table and his head held low, Steve spoke with utmost conviction. Sharon felt goosebumps rise on her arms and neck. She wondered what it must be like for the other agents, rushing about in their work to launch the Helicarriers.  Would he be successful in convincing them? Only time would tell. 

Steve took a deep breath before continuing. “I know I'm asking a lot, but the price of freedom is high, it always has been, and it's a price I'm willing to pay. And if I'm the only one, then so be it. But I'm willing to bet I'm not.” 

Everyone in the room had their eyes on Steve Rogers, on Captain America. Maria smiled at him. Sharon stared at him with admiration and respect. In that moment, she realised, she didn’t regret any decision that had led them to this moment. That led her to Steve. 

Sam stepped up, unable to hold his grin. “Did you write that down first, or was it off the top of your head?” 

Sharon turned around in her chair, getting back to the task at hand. She expertly worked on the system and accessed two security cameras and live audio of the twenty third floor. On the monitors to her left, she activated live footage of the conference room. Behind her, Steve and Sam left for the Helicarriers. 

As she watched them go, she wished she could be of more use. If it weren’t for her arm, she could’ve boarded the third Helicarrier and saved everyone some time. Sharon shook her head, wishful thinking was futile now. 

* * *

There was a lot of information being processed at the same time. Maria guided Steve and Sam through the comms. And next to her, Sharon kept a check on what was happening within the Triskelion. 

On one hand, two agents barged into the conference room, clearly HYDRA, as they had their guns raised on Councilman Singh. On the other hand, Rumlow barged into the office on the twenty third floor, ordering the tech to launch the Helicarriers. She watched through the screen as Neal pulled out his glock and aimed at Rumlow. 

Sharon rose to her feet. She had to be of better use. She looked back at Maria, who gave her nod of approval. She owed Neal this much. She wouldn’t even be standing here if it weren’t for him.  She took the elevator, trying to waste as little time as possible. By the time she got off on the floor, a gut feeling told her it had already been too late. With her gun drawn, Sharon sprinted for the office.

One, two, three dead bodies lay on the floor. There was no sign of Rumlow. Next to one of the bodies, an agent took deep, panicked breaths, as she wiped her eyes of the tears she couldn't control. 

Sharon lowered her gun as the shock absorbed her. 

She slowly approached the table Neal had been at when Maria’s voice crackled in her ear. 

“I’m sorry, Sharon.” 

A tech, a familiar face, one’s name she could not recall, sat on the floor with his hand in his hair. A pool of blood trailed from him to the body that lay on the floor. Her eyes followed the trail of blood, till she saw Neal, blood oozing from his chest, eyes staring at a distant void.

“No, no...no,” she wailed softly, her voice barely coming out. 

She lost the grip on her gun, and it met the ground with a thud. She slowly knelt beside him, cradling his head in her arms. Around them, the few agents that had survived moved in a frenzy. Some were heading for the exit, others were lost and delirious. One sat on the floor, with his head in his hands, shaking with tiny sobs. Another tried to help her partner get up, blood gushing from his leg.

Sharon looked back at Neal, hugged him, and swayed his limp body in her arms. Tears welled in her eyes and suppressed hiccups broke free. 

“Which way did he go, Hill?” Sharon strained, her voice stricken with grief. It hurt to speak. 

“I sent Sam after him. Sharon, I need you here. Sharon?” 

Sharon ignored Maria’s plea. She tried to pick Neal up, tried to get the tech and his body out of here, but he was too heavy for her to carry, and the tech was in a state of severe shock. 

Giving up, she slowly rose to her feet. 

“Where do you need me,” she finally spoke. 

“Steve’s still aboard the carrier, I’ve lost contact with him. Take the lifts to the conference room, collect everyone and get out,” she instructed. 

Sharon took a few reluctant steps, unable to peel her eyes away from everything. 

* * *

“Agent Thirteen, conference room,” she numbly said in the elevator. 

“Level Eight access confirmed. Welcome, Agent Thirteen,” the automated voice played. It struck her that this was the last time she would ever be here. The last time she would use her Level Eight protocols. With everything that had happened, maybe it was for the best. She sniffed hard, her chest felt heavy and she just wanted the feeling to go away. 

In the bullet fast elevator, she studied her hand, then her arm and looked down on herself, blood smeared in spots. Not hers, she reminded herself. Not hers. She felt a shudder and gulped hard, steeling herself. 

The elevator opened. Sharon was met with glass walls of the conference room. She had been here before, when the aliens attacked New York. 

An automatic door slid open on her arrival. Alexander Pierce’s body lay on the floor along with the fallen council members, scattered in the conference room. 

“Let’s go,” Sharon said. 

Natasha must have noticed how her voice didn’t match her countenance, or maybe it was the more obvious bloody uniform, for she stood still, only for a moment, analysing Sharon’s rigid gait.

If someone saw her hands tremble, it was Fury. He motioned her to move, wordlessly, and she took the seat next to his, strapping herself but not letting go of the belt. As they rose in the air, Sam’s voice in her ears caught her off guard. 

“Please, tell me you got that chopper in the air!” He yelled. The sudden sound made her jump in her seat, but when she recognised it as Sam’s she settled back and turned to look at Natasha. 

“Sam, where are you?” Natasha spoke into her piece. 

“Forty first floor, north-west corner!” Nick maneuvered the chopper and Sharon was left breathless when she saw what was in front of them. The last remaining Helicarrier was crashing into the building, sending debris and smoke in all directions. 

“We're on it, stay where you are,” she said.

“Not an option!” he yelled. 

Sharon frantically began counting the floors in descending order, trying to make out where Sam could possibly be when Sam suddenly flung out of a window above them. Nick tilted the chopper and Sharon’s grip on the seatbelt grew tighter. Sam landed into the chopper from one side, and would have probably fallen from the other end, if Natasha hadn’t grabbed his arm and yanked him. 

“FORTY FIRST FLOOR!” he yelled at Nick. “FORTY. FIRST.” 

“It's not like they put the floor numbers on the outside of the building!” Nick responded.

As Sam settled, taking deep breaths to calm himself down, Natasha called for Maria. “Hill, where's Rogers? Do you have eyes on Steve?” 

“Lost contact with him. Last location was Charlie.”

* * *

As they soared over the Potomac, Sharon spotted a body on the river bank. 

“Is that Steve!?” she shouted over the sound of the chopper. Fury squinted at where she had her finger pointed and then descended the chopper in that direction. Sharon and Sam scurried towards his body as Sharon pressed her fingers on the side of his throat. 

“His pulse is weak,” Sharon said frantically and helped Sam carry Steve. Fury however, had other plans. The man adjusted his coat as he got off the chopper.

“Where are you going!?” Natasha asked. 

“Get him to a hospital, we’ll meet at my funeral,” he said and walked along the river bank, before disappearing behind the wild bushes. Natasha took his seat and flew them to the nearest hospital.

* * *

They were all seated in a sterile, nearly empty hallway when Maria came, still dressed in her tactical gear. 

“How is he?” she asked. 

“In surgery,” Sam answered. A nurse passed by the exhausted lot, eyeing Maria and the gun sticking out of her holster. They probably would’ve eyed Sharon too, but she realised her long overcoat hid her bloody suit and her gear. 

“My place,” Natasha said, placing her hand on Sharon’s shoulder. Sharon shook her head tiredly. “Look, you’ve had a rough couple of days. Just…take a shower, and a nap. Sam’s taking first watch,” she encouraged. 

“I need a favour,” was all that Sharon said. 

“We’ll talk about favours later,” she replied quietly. “Come on,” Nat offered her a hand. 

Begrudgingly, Sharon got to her feet and began trudging out of the hospital. Natasha drove her home, and not a word was spoken. 

That night, as Sharon dragged her body to Natasha’s bed, she tried not to think of the blood red water that was pooled at her feet in the shower, or how she had to scrub her skin for hours to get rid of the stains and the smell of iron-blood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I might have to turn this into a series soon. Regardless of what happens, I really appreciate all the support and lovely comments I've gotten on here. Thank you. 
> 
> I like to think of this whole thing as my love letter to Sharon Carter. The only two characters I've loved with all my life are Sharon Carter and Sansa Stark (I just don't feel attached to Steve Rogers anymore, not the way I used to be at least. But the kid in me will always love him. I suppose). You may have noticed that I've never written something on Sansa, and that is because I was truly satisfied with her journey. It's Sharon's journey, or lack thereof, that disappoints me and makes me want to write. But, my gut tells me that tfatws will change all of that. So, fingers crossed.


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